Oh, so when I last posted, I was in a Mood, which usually automatically precludes blogging. This time, however, I decided to try to write something anyway, ideally something I wouldn't be ashamed of later. I do get frustrated (and I probably talk about it too much) at how little I know how to communicate, and I'm especially concerned this summer that I'll lose something if I don't write it down. I kind of like detailing events/moments anyway, independent of angst over transience-of-all-things.


It's been awhile since I wrote anything; I haven't been doing much, except reading a lot and fighting red tape to register for classes. I obtained permission to take an honors English seminar from a kindly Joyce-enthusiast professor. I also called the Math Department and asked about my MV/Diff Eq class last year. They referred me to the Office of Transfer Credit, which referred me to the Math Department, which referred me to the vacationing Department Head, who made fun of me over e-mail for our spotty coverage of diff eq applications. Eventually I learned I have to take one or two placement tests when I get to Penn, so I bought my old textbooks cheap on Amazon.com. Somewhat relatedly, I got an IB diploma: I squeaked by in Physics, but I got an A on my ridiculous EE, which I take as good indication that I can write papers drunk or on no sleep.


Finally last weekend I got a steady stream of socializing, starting with a hike Saturday morning. It was a lovely day, sunny and not hot, and we picnicked in a pastoral manner at the foot of a bridge. Seth skipped rocks expertly; I tried but couldn’t learn how. We took the Billy Goat Trail next - 2.5 miles of mostly jagged rocks, which I scrambled across in my too-short shorts and sneakers, while the more adept boys (Andrew, Ben E., and Seth) scaled near-vertical faces. Seth wore a straw hat; I have a snapshot memory of him perched above us, squinting under his hat, while most of us surveyed the muddy Potomac from a lower ledge. We left the park at 4:00 PM, driving into a darkening sky and impending thundershowers. I showered efficiently, donned my red dress, made for Lizzie's in the light rain.


Lizzie's party was a nice reunion of people I admire from my own class. Sadly, I went into what Nick S. bluntly and probably perceptively called "hermit mode", where I zone out, lose hold of present tense, can't relate to humans, etc. I did hear some raucous Hello, Dolly! recreations and some more melodic Lara/Barry entertainment. Love songs are enduringly appealing and only temporarily trite; I wondered what Lara thinks about when she sings them, whether they're personally affecting for her or if she's more focused on the technical aspect of performance. I got a goodbye kiss in the wet driveway and drove home, senselessly miserable - except for a peak of good feeling when I love tapped Seth on the Pike.


The next day I felt better and agonized over dressing for the second concert of my life: The New Pornographers at the Black Cat Club, a Canadian group clearly beloved by the indie kid set. They have unflinchingly PG lyrics - silly stuff like

Mass romantic fool, wears Foster Grants, his books on tape ring true
When everyone wants to say, "I love you" to someone on the radio

but I'm sure parents would nonetheless be put off by the band name. I overplayed their CDs beforehand; it's exactly the sort of thing I want from music, up-tempo and musically complex enough that I can imagine a cappella arrangements. The NPs were prefaced with two bands with "organ" in their name - The Organ and The Lonesome Organist. The former were androgynous Canadian chicks with a consistently pleasing sound; the latter was a thrillingly accomplished one-man band who couldn't quite pull off fun-to-listen-to. The club was dark and smoky; I watched the indie kids, predominantly skinny and peppered with cookie-cutter versions of Seth and Ersin. They shouted song requests: "Testament to Youth in Verse" "Slow Descent into Alcoholism" "Eye of the Tiger" (grin - the band cussed at them a bit for that last one). After I got home very late, I felt re-committed to Learning about Music, the way I Learned about Art in tenth grade. I currently have no basis for my preferences, except random exposure and music snob friends.

He said I should stop and pay attention and commit the details to memory - the leather seat and the wide sky, the starlessness, encapsulating heat and silence, expansive anticipatory possibility. Authors (I guess I'm thinking of Faulkner) have tried to describe that elemental awareness of a distinct consciousness in your presence, separated by air and bodies - and I felt it, bubbles of heat and dark between us, and some other infinite distance, and his invocation of permanence in the air.

My other story this week concerns incompetence trying to get to the DC fireworks, but first, on Thursday night, I slept over at Tara's. Nick S. and I introduced a roomful of people to Trogdor, and there was snazzy abstinence sloganing on the way to the grocery store (for ice cream), and then we sat and talked and didn't sleep. The next morning, we watched the Takoma Park parade - a charming mix of pomp and Leftism. An old man instigated the "First Annual Takoma Park Hunt for WMDs," combing the crowd with a magnifying glass, and countless small children were prodded along by their parents for various causes, and the talk of the parade was the unexplained absence of the Gay & Lesbian Association float. Tara and I both received blue balloons; a Chinese Christian group lobbed vile candy at us. Once the parade petered off anticlimactically (some boys on skateboards trailed the final float down Maple), we ate pizza in Old Town, and then I went home and napped.


Seth picked me up at 7:15 PM to meet the rest of our party at the Jefferson Memorial. We made it to Bethesda Metro without incident, but there my fare card was rejected and I had to brave massive lines to purchase a new one. Seth, who had already swiped his card into the system, waited on the other side of the guardrail. I stood for maybe fifteen minutes, while a goony guy whistled "The Stars of Track and Field" in my ear. Belatedly, I realized there were three Carderock Springs Elementary School alumni in front of me, so we had a brief, awkward conversation. Finally I got my card and Seth and I caught a train. One transfer later, we reached L'Enfant Plaza and very briefly consulted a map. "We have to go East," said Seth knowingly.


We walked out into the street, where people thronged purposefully in the opposite direction from us. No matter; we walked onward, making for the waterfront. The smell of raw fish was a good sign. The promising-looking bridge towering somewhere over our heads was a bad sign. "I think that's where we want to be," said Seth, craning upwards. I indicated a tall hill that intersected the bridge, so we ascended that and made it to the bridge (in sight of the Jefferson Memorial!) just as the fireworks started. Viewing explosions as we walked, we crossed the bridge, ducking camcorders and maintaining a running commentary. I said I felt more American than usual - there were so many people everywhere, and smale-scale sparklers erupting from bushes, and cars parked along the bridge like still-frame stop-and-go traffic. I felt, first of all, like Seth and I were bumbling through an Americana tableau - and also a sense of identity through membership to the crowd. Seth didn't feel anything in particular. That was fine; I'm the one with the silly overflow of nostalgia for my hometown (DC + suburbs).


Anyway, we reached the end of the bridge before we realized we were nowhere closer to the Jefferson Memorial and were, in fact, in Virginia. I thought this was very amusing but humored Seth in his desire to keep trying to reach the Memorial - and so we recrossed the Interstate bridge, still watching the fireworks sideways, and started our descent to the hill. Finally I impressed upon Seth the futility of skipping the fireworks to look for our friends. Abashedly, we started walking back across the bridge for a third time and stopped midway, hugging the guardrail, in plain view of the bombastic finale. I know all of this sounds ridiculous, but it was very fun; Seth and I were silly and happy, it was a beautiful night, the sky was lit up for our benefit.


After the show ended, we joined the faceless excess of people converging on L'Enfant Plaza and caught our train at a run. I scrambled through the closing door triumphantly - then looked for Seth. "He didn't make it," said a woman nearby, surprised and apologetic. I ran to the shut door and received mouthed instructions to MEET ME AT THE NEXT STATION. Then I grinned sheepishly at my audience: two men sharing a seat, and a married couple and small child. The men giggled at my predicament. The child guffawed loudly. I settled down to read Nine Stories, while the men argued passionately about age of consent loopholes. Seth and I did meet at the next station, and we enjoyed a squished ride together until Bethesda. I made it home by 11:00, instructed my parents never to try this DC fireworks scheme, and slept for ten hours.

I can barely remember what I've done lately, but it's been mostly very fun. Last Sunday was the annual end-of-year pool party. We talked at great length about novel tattoos (fine art reproductions and reflective surfaces) and briefly grappled with Ben's pool-cleaning robot. Joe drew a robot couple on my upper arm, and then I was incongruously abusive to him. "This is going on the website!" he threatened, but I said it'd be a bad idea to mix fact and fiction that way, confusing the masses. I hope there will be masses. I want Internet-wide notoriety. Anyway, I drove home on Rockville Pike in the dark and felt a surge of affection for the crass, gaudy highway; everyone makes fun of me for this, but I like the endless shopping centers and the half-shorted electrical signs ( IFER L ATHER says the old "Jennifer Leather" sign at this point).


At some point early in the week, I read The Hours, which I mention only because it seemed trashy and inadequate - a stylistic imitation with the occasional swear word and overt sexuality. However, many of the images and plot details were familiar from To the Lighthouse (I haven't read Mrs. Dalloway, though I will next), which worries me, because I wonder if much of what I liked from TTL was - reused. Would that detract from the coolness? I don't know; probably not. However, it is a source of concern (grin). Also early in the week, Seth returned from Chicago, and called my cell phone while I was out with friends. In an act of selfishness learned from Amy and others, I abbreviated my night out and arranged to be picked up by Seth at Shady Grove Metro.


I'm a stranger to public transportation (my house is probably 20 minutes from the closest Metro station) and also to being a girl alone in public places, so the following struck me as novel and strange. I sat in a covered bus terminal and fidgeted with my roll-up calculator, uncomfortably aware of my lack of anything to read. One terminal over, a young man, vaguely overweight and unkempt, stared fixedly at my profile. There was nothing furtive about what he did; he watched me like I was a television program. Meanwhile, on my left, another young man - rakish and holding a hand-rolled cigarette - loitered casually, ambling periodically closer. He leaned on the side of my terminal and said something inaudible.

"What?" I said, which he took as an invitation to sit down.

"What's your name?" he said.

"...Sharon," I said at length.

"Do you have a boyfriend, Sharon?"

"Yes."

"Is he that guy?" (He pointed at the starer.)

"No." There was a protracted silence. "I'm waiting for him now," I said helpfully.

"Oh," said the guy, clearly thwarted. "Well, nice to meet you." He shook my hand. I saw the starer automatically give up staring, assuming, maybe, that I'd come with the second guy. Victorious on both sides and unmolested, I cheerfully waited the next few minutes for Seth.